Which just exemplified my point, a people under threat tend to behave this way, us included.

Dennis

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Truth, especially “moral truth,” is that elusive human creation whose exclusive apprehension is claimed by many, who then sanctimoniously condemn anyone else who does not agree with their particular apprehension, while denying that any question can be posed about their own apprehension. I will try to avoid that tendency. DEC

Agree with Pat Condell’s argument and objection to sanctions proposed for a man who criticized Islam. That has no direct relationship to proposing to throw all Muslims out of Europe because of the acts of one or several people who also Muslim. Criticizing any ideology is different to me from sanctioning individuals who endorse that ideology.

Dennis

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Truth, especially “moral truth,” is that elusive human creation whose exclusive apprehension is claimed by many, who then sanctimoniously condemn anyone else who does not agree with their particular apprehension, while denying that any question can be posed about their own apprehension. I will try to avoid that tendency. DEC

There is another problem, IMO, when proposing to act against a whole class of people called “Muslim,” based on the acts of a few. Seem to me by proposing that we’re behaving exactly as do religious fundamentalists of any religion, condemning masses of people based on some system of belief, or lack of it, we attach to that mass. How is that different from the Mullah who screams that all infidels should be destroyed?

When people get aroused by fear and anger, they tend to become more generalized in their perceptions, and tend to not make discriminations. That’s one implication of the expression that as you get angrier, or more frightened, you get stupider.

I know of no war or cultural conflict in which both sides did not caste the other in simplistic, non-discriminatory terms that justify some retaliatory actions against the opposing group. You kill Japs, Kikes, Sloops, rag-heads; honkies, and the list goes on, but not people. People may need to be killed, especially if and as they attack us in an effort to cause harm. But you cannot put a bullet into an ideology.

One of the conficting cultural differences between much of the western secular cultures and Islamic collectivistic cultures is that we have a tendency to judge individuals on the basis of individual behavior, not only the ideology they may espouse. Fundamentalist Islamic, or for that matter Christian, cultures tend to be collectivistic, not individualistic, and they do not tend to respect individual rights.

This thread’s original post reflects that tendency, and in so doing denies being considered “intellectual,” or “rational,” or “reasonable,” but bigoted.